


Charlie Got Molested

by rumham (SolivagantSleepyhead)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: CSA survivor Charlie, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Molestation, Repressed Memories, generally pretty heavy shit sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:31:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolivagantSleepyhead/pseuds/rumham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Everything about the memory screamed hallucination, but there was just a certain quality to it—something that made it unforgettable, like his brain was holding on to it for whatever reason. Whenever he got fucked up, he could see the scene play out inside of his head. The shadowy shapes in the dark would mold themselves to fit the memory. An illusion of strong hands holding him down and immobilizing him; a pair of glowing, almond-shaped eyes like a cat’s boring into him. A voice that wasn't quite his own crying, screaming, whispering: I love you, I love you, I love you…"</p>
<p>-----<br/>A glance into Charlie's reasons behind being so defensive of CSA victims. (Based on my headcanons about the episode "Charlie Gets Molested", as well as the copious implications regarding Charlie's past sexual abuse. Please read the notes before proceeding in the story or commenting, thanks.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charlie Got Molested

**Author's Note:**

> So, my head canon is that Charlie has repressed memories of being molested by his uncle Jack as a child, and his memories become clearer when he’s getting drunk and high. Because of this, his mind singles in on certain details of his molester, thus creating Charlie’s interpretation of The Nightman (Strong hands, catlike eyes, etc). Charlie assumes these are hallucinations, but is triggered into regaining his memories when the McPoyles claim to have been molested by Coach Murray—a teacher Charlie might have had around the same timeframe of his molestation. Because of these things coming together, Charlie begins to separate his memories and the reality of what happened, thus provoking him to try and stop the McPoyles from lying about being molested, as it hits too close to home for him. Because of his touchiness regarding the subject of child molestation, as well as what he had said a year before, Liam comes to the conclusion that Charlie was molested as a child and uses that to blackmail Charlie into helping them, which is why Charlie was reluctant to go to the police at first, even when he knew that the McPoyles would go down either way. 
> 
> (Before I get any hate about this, im going to state right off the bat that I am a CSA survivor, and was inspired to write this story because I really relate to Charlie, and wanted to write something using my personal experiences with memory repression/regaining memories of abuse. I’m sorry if you are upset or offended by this, but I’d really appreciate it if you kept that in mind before commenting, and don’t take this too seriously!!)

When you lived a Rock n’ Roll life style like Charlie did, you had to just accept that your memory was pretty much unreliable. Either you drink too much and forget everything you did, or you got too high and woke up with memories that…didn’t quite fit. The thing was, he didn’t always have time to separate the verifiable truth from things he’d dreamt or seen on tv, so he usually just cut it down the middle and then decided what he’d keep. Sometimes it was easier. Other times…it was more ambiguous. When he couldn’t decide whether something _really_ happened or not, he just catalogued it away to deal with if it became important later. For the most part, he managed to ignore it—after all, there were few things that couldn't be immediately banished by getting totally hammered or huffing a little glue. If he could put it off, then he didn't see a reason why he shouldn't, especially since, admittedly, he had no fucking idea where to start with the issue. That was comfortable; he was used to living that way. After all, who knows? It had never really come up before, so who's to say it ever would?

 

There was one thing, though. It’d been on the metaphorical backburner of his mind for…well, as long as he could remember. Everything about the memory screamed hallucination, but there was just a certain quality to it—something that made it unforgettable, like his brain was holding on to it for whatever reason. Whenever he got fucked up, he could see the scene play out inside of his head. The shadowy shapes in the dark would mold themselves to fit the memory. An illusion of strong hands holding him down and immobilizing him; a pair of glowing, almond-shaped eyes like a cat’s boring into him. A voice that wasn't quite his own crying, screaming, whispering:  _I love you, I love you, I love you_ …

 

When he’d come to hours later in the blue haze of his apartment, he would rush to the door and window and check the locks, open his closet and peer inside. He always felt slightly like a different person after dreaming of the Nightman. Older, maybe. The feeling never lasted long, though. In a few hours, he’d forget about the dream completely, and the Nightman would go back in the vault where he belonged, biding his time until the next time Charlie fell asleep.

 

The thing was, even if the Nightman dreams felt a _little_ bit more real than his other hallucinations, without proof, he couldn’t classify it as ever having happened or not. And since he didn’t see it affecting his future in some significant way, then it was just another thing he could put off until it became an issue.

 

At least, that's how he rationalized it. But, if a career of killing rats had taught him anything, it was that something you assumed you could put off indefinitely usually comes back to bite you in the ass. 

 

However, where most rat bites could be fixed with a big stick and about 12 beers, the McPoyle's false molestation claims hung as heavily and unsolvable as the Blackletter Bold font slapped across the front page of the newspaper that morning. 

 

Charlie felt sick. As his friends prattled on in morbid fascination at the article, there was a rushing pressure building up behind his eyes and ears, threatening to split his head open across the dirty linoleum. He stumbled over his words like a child, like the illiterate moron everyone accused him of being. He could feel their eyes trained on him, but he couldn't bear to look—not now. Not when the Nightman’s face was rushing into his mind, taking on features that had once been shrouded by darkness, but where now sharpening themselves, looking almost familiar…

 

"I gotta go." He slurred, the words falling from his mouth beyond his control more than actually being said. His feet were already carrying him out of the bar, further and further from, well. Everything. 

 

By the time Charlie's mind had cleared, he found himself outside of the McPoyles' place. His stomach was in knots, but his adrenaline was pumping in overdrive as he knocked on the front door. 

 

"Yo, McPoyle! Hey, open up!" 

 

There was a momentary pause before the door creaked open, Liam standing awkwardly in the doorway with only a towel wrapped around his waist. "Hey, Charlie. Long time, no see." Liam noted absently, his voice monotone as he gave Charlie a once-over. "What do you want?" 

 

"Is your brother here, man? I gotta talk to you guys." Charlie stated simply, trying and failing to hide the anxiety in his voice.

 

"...yeah." 

 

"Yeah? Can I come in?" He prompted. 

 

"...yeah." 

Charlie wanted nothing more than to give in to his irritation and just leave as he ushered Liam inside. It was now or never, and, if his rapidly growing desire to give up and just go home and drink himself to death was any indication, he knew that he was going to regret doing this. 

 

* * *

 

"I heard about the coach Murray thing. You guys  _cannot_  go to the police and say he molested you." Charlie stressed, hoping that, somehow, Liam would understand the severity of the situation and come to his senses. Anything that might help drive out the overwhelming nauseous feeling building up in his stomach. 

 

"Why not?"

 

" _Because he didn't molest you_!" He snapped.

 

"That's true, but he's a dick and we hated him." Liam deadpanned, his cold stare scalding Charlie to the core. "This is our chance for revenge; you want in?" 

 

"No!" Charlie scoffed, feeling more disgusted by the second. He’d never really liked the McPoyle brothers, but who could live with themselves knowing they had used deception to ruin an innocent life, all by shouting over the voices of  _real_  survivors? Who could act like they deserved justice when so many ACTUAL victims would never get the opportunity to come forward for their experiences? 

 

"I think you do." _Fuck. Goddamnit._  "Hello, Charlie."

 

Charlie fought the urge to groan. "Hello, Ryan."

 

"I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news recently but there are millions to be made here, my friend." Ryan smirked, dusting random objects around the sitting room as he moved behind the couch. "Oh, sure, there's the classic route of priest molestation, but we thought we'd mix it up a bit." Every bit of his demeanor oozed total apathy toward the tragedies he so callously planned to use for his own self-gratification. 

 

"We're going after the whole damn school board. If you want in on the team, we could probably get a nice class-action suit going." Liam added, fixing Charlie with his intense stare again—as if trying to communicate something unsaid, something that did not go unnoticed by Charlie.

 

"Okay. Okay, first of all, there are people out there who  _actually_  have been molested. And you guys are gonna exploit that for your own personal gain?" He asked, still grasping desperately at the idea that he could somehow appeal to their seemingly nonexistent senses of empathy and common decency—a fight he was quickly losing. "You assholes are securing your place in hell."

 

"We thought about it. We're willing to roll the dice." 

 

Charlie gave up trying to reason, standing up to his full height—an unimposing 5'7". "Well, I won't let you do it. I'm gonna call the cops." He stated firmly. One way or another, he was going to assure that the McPoyles wouldn't get away with this. 

 

Liam stood as well, easily eclipsing the smaller man. "Oh no, you won't, Charlie." He said, his voice carrying that same threatening tone as before. Charlie struggled with the fact that it sounded...almost knowing. Taunting. 

 

"Oh yes, I will." He responded, squaring his shoulders and standing his ground. 

 

"Oh, my friend, I'm afraid not." Ryan interjected, rapidly closing in on Charlie as well. 

 

"And why not?" Charlie prompted, wondering if it was paranoia that made him feel as if Ryan's voice held the same threat. 

 

"We'll tell the cops the whole thing was your idea." 

 

Charlie's blood went cold. He remembered saying it, of  _course_ he did. At the time, he'd just been fucking around—just palling around with some guys like he usually did. When you lived like he did, you had to desensitize yourself to awful things, or else you'd be eaten alive. If you wanted any chance of being likable, you had to store every awful thing that has ever happened away somewhere and forget about it. You had to be funny, and that meant being cruel. How was he supposed to know? How was he to know that out of every fucked up thing he'd probably said that night, they would sink their claws into the  _one fucking thing_ that could cause so much damage?

 

"I-I was joking." He stuttered, trying and failing to pull his heart rate down to a safe level. 

 

"Really?" 

 

Charlie desperately craved to lash out. Of course he wasn't serious, they knew that. Unlike everyone there that night, they were as sober as could be. The McPoyles weren't geniuses by any stretch of the imagination, but Charlie's slightly drunken ramblings were anything but subtle:

 

" _I'm not joking_ ," he'd said, " _I'm really not. I wouldn't even joke about something like that_."

 

They knew. They'd kept this secret hidden under their belts for a fucking  _year_ , and this was their way of showing him that they weren't afraid to put all of the cards on the table. This was their way of using Charlie's biggest uncertainty to their advantage, to show him that they didn't care who they had to step on to get what they wanted. 

 

"Shit." 

 

"We'd hate to have to put this whole thing on your shoulders." Ryan crooned, his saccharine false-sympathy not even attempting to mask the double edged sword behind their ultimatum. He either unintentionally revealed the biggest, most painful secret he had, or he went to prison over a crime he wanted nothing to do with. 

 

"Shit." 

 

"So you're gonna have to keep your mouth shut. You don't have to join us, but if anyone asks you point-blank..." Liam paused, leaning closer to Charlie's horrified face. "Your ass got molested." He whispered, relishing in Charlie's thunderstruck expression as he finally broke out of his trance. "Otherwise, we're talking conspiracy charges."

 

Ryan took a step forward, rapidly encroaching upon Charlie's personal space, the threat still lacing his tone: "And prison can be a bad place for someone like you, Charlie." 

 

"A very bad place." Liam added gently, and Charlie flinched away as he felt a hand threading through his hair. He knew all too well what they were implying.  _Don't screw us, or this time, you might not have the luxury of escaping the dream._

 

With the ultimatum fresh on his mind, Charlie left as quickly as possible. Until that moment, he'd never considered the full consequences that delving too deeply into the truth behind the Nightman could have been.

 

* * *

 

All Charlie had wanted to do since he'd found out about the McPoyles was forget, but no matter what, he couldn't seem to shake the anxiety. After a night of little sleep, fearful of the Nightman making a reappearance in his dreams, he'd gone back to the bar, where Dennis invited him to finish their game of pool from the previous day.   


This was nothing unusual, as they were all usually so distracted by this or that that they rarely finished any of their games in one sitting. What  _was_  unusual was how Dennis and Dee were acting. Most days when he got back, they were all over him about doing this or going there, but, today, they couldn't seem to get enough of him. They were being so kind, so patient, so...gentle with him, that it was more unnerving than comforting.  _Did they already know?_  He wondered. _Had the McPoyles made his decision for him and told everyone that Coach Murray had molested him, just to cover their own asses_? He was set more on edge just wondering when they were going to spring the big reveal on him, so much so that he missed nearly every ball he half-heartedly tried to hit. 

 

"That's a good shot, bud." Dennis commented, either unaware or uncaring of the fact that Charlie had actually botched the shot entirely. "Hey, tell me something, man. What's been going on with you lately? You just seem..." He paused, trailing off in hopes that Charlie would fill in the blanks for him. 

 

"You know, um, I'm just distracted." Charlie replied, which, in all honesty, was neither a lie nor an excuse.  

 

"Is that why you ran out of the bar the other day?" Dee prompted, a rare, compassionate look on her face as she absently wiped down the sticky table surfaces.  

 

_Shit_. "No. No. I was—I had some stuff I needed to do. It just popped in my head." He rambled, trying and failing to seem casual while he warred with the instinct to run as far away from the bar as quickly as he could. 

 

"Yeah, well, that's understandable. We've all got things that we have to do." Dennis agreed, sounding more condescending than it seemed like he'd intended. Dee circled, standing behind Dennis like this was some sort of police interrogation and Charlie immediately understood where this could be going. 

 

"Yeah. What'cha running from, Charlie?"  _Annnnd there it is. Fuck._

 

"What?"   


"Dee, could you grab me a beer?" Dennis intervened, seeming to go from calm to agitated in an instant. 

 

"Grab one yourself." She replied, her concerned facade also beginning to deteriorate.

 

"I'm right in the middle of a game—"

 

"Your game isn't working." She interrupted, her thinly veiled metaphor going over about as inconspicuously as an atomic bomb. "Let me play now." 

 

Dennis turned to face her fully now, and Charlie decided it'd be best to get the fuck out before they asked him directly. He gave the arguing twins a futile wave as he hurriedly escaped one of their infamous arguments, wondering where it would be best for him to go and try to forget all of this shit—especially now that Paddy's was off the table. He heard Dee yell after him once he'd left, but he didn't dare turn back. Wherever he went, it had to be better than with them. 

 

* * *

 

Charlie had eventually settled on shutting himself away in his apartment to think things through—not that he really had much to consider. Overall, he wasn't even sure that the McPoyles had the balls to pin all of this on him. If he just kept his mouth shut and let them fuck over coach Murray, he didn't see a reason why they'd feel motivated to involve him. But...no matter what, they still knew his secret (a secret he’d only just learned himself. He hadn’t even had time to make odds or ends of it, yet).  Maybe they wouldn't tell anyone  _now,_ but there was no fucking way that they would keep something like that to themselves without using it to keep him under their thumb later on. He could always try to strike a deal with them...a secret for a secret. They didn't fuck with him and he wouldn't fuck with them. Sure, he'd feel guilty about coach Murray, and he was still disgusted by the way they were exploiting something that had the power to ruin lives, but, in the end, who was he to be the hero here? Charlie stared at the cracked, water-stained ceiling above his head long enough to nearly memorize every imperfection, hoping that all of this would burn out soon. 

 

It wasn't long after he'd inevitably nodded off that his mom had called him, leaving a message and requesting that he come over as soon as possible. She usually needed help with this or that around the house, but she'd definitely sounded off on the phone. Worried that she might have gotten hurt, Charlie decided to put his brooding aside and head down as quickly as he could. But, with all that had been going on the past couple of days, his childhood home was the last place he'd want to be; it took all of his energy to ignore the flashbacks edging closer and closer with every step he took towards his old neighborhood. 

 

The front door to his mother's house was unlocked when he arrived, which his first clue that something was definitely wrong. His mother always obsessively locked her doors due to her anxiety. Even in grade school, he had to carry at  _least_  12 keys around every time he went out to play.

 

"Hello? Ma?" 

 

"In here, Charlie!" She shouted from down the hall, and, although he was relieved that she sounded alright (for the most part), he couldn't fight the unsettled feeling in his gut as he pressed further into the house. 

 

"Hey, I got your message. You sounded kinda funny." He added, glancing through doorways as he followed her calls to the sitting room near the kitchen.

 

"Come on back, honey!" 

 

The evasion of his question was certainly a bit odd. Even so, he tried to chalk it up to his recent worries—the feeling still lingered, though. "Everything alright?"

 

Charlie froze as he reached the doorway. He couldn't even find the strength to run as the scene unfolded before him. Dennis and Dee, his family...the McPoyle brothers... Somehow, he still felt shocked that they could sink this low—that they were big enough douchebags to drag not just his friends, but his  _family_  into this sick scam of theirs. He wanted desperately to run. To scream or cry or lash out or do  _anything_ ,  _anything_  but just stand there with his mouth hanging open in shock. But, deep down, he knew that any of those things would fill the same purpose. Any violent emotion would only further solidify the misconceptions and the  _reality_  of what had happened. 

 

For a second, he finally understood what all of the rats that had died at his hand must have felt as he cornered them in the bar. 

 

He was helpless. 

 

"Hello, Charlie." His mom smiled, despite the recent lines of mascara staining her rosy cheeks. 

 

"Mom? Grandma? Uncle Jack? What's—what’s everybody doing here?" He asked, silently praying that maybe he was wrong, and this wasn't what he thought it was. That maybe all of this was a sick dream and any moment  he’d wake up before this nightmare of a week had even begun.  

 

"Well, we've all gathered here at the request of your friends." His mom responded, her voice wavering slightly as she watched him carefully, like he was a wild animal that could bolt at any second. 

 

His so-called "friends" responded in turn, but Charlie couldn't take his eyes off of Ryan and Liam, who lingered in the back threateningly, a silent reminder of just how much control they maintained over the situation. Their eyes communicating the non-verbal promise of “ _Do as we say, or else_.”

 

"I don't exactly know how one of these things are supposed to go, but we understand that there's been some  _abuse_..." His mom whimpered, her composure crumpling at a record pace. Charlie briefly wondered how much she _knew_ about the truth. He remembered her as a constant presence in his childhood: the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing he saw at night—but, that couldn’t be true, could it? Could someone who had always seemed hypervigilant really be so blind to a trauma unfolding before their very eyes for _years_ , potentially?

 

Charlie let his eyes wander from person to person around the room, eventually settling on the figure furthest from him, his Uncle Jack. Unlike most of the occupants of the room, his face didn’t hold that bleeding-heart sympathetic quality—in fact, if Charlie hadn’t known any better, he would have pegged the man’s expression as something akin to excitement. He was perched on the far side of the couch, licking his lips and staring intently at Charlie, as if he didn’t care whether or not he played the part of a concerned and caring family member at all. Something about the way his dark eyes bore into Charlie’s skin resonated deeply within him, and he felt his skin prickling from the feel of that intense gaze. Charlie had seen that look before, that predatory concentration; but he just couldn’t peg it to a time and a place. He averted his eyes after a moment, but the feeling of Jack’s stare continued.

 

Mrs. Kelly gestured to the McPoyles, bringing Charlie to the conflict at hand as she continued speaking. "These two boys have been strong enough to admit what happened, and we thank you for that." 

 

"We just hope that that man goes away for a long, long time." 

 

"Prison can be a bad place for a guy like that. A  _very_  bad place." Liam added. Charlie swallowed against the lump in his throat and said a prayer to something he didn’t even believe in.

 

"Now, we're not exactly sure how this thing is supposed to go, but your friends have been helping us out on a couple of key points." His mom explained, giving him a watery, supportive smile before turning toward Dee. "Now?"

 

Dee handed her a baby doll, and from his peripheral, Charlie saw his Uncle Jack's mouth twitch up into a smirk.

 

Charlie fought the rising urge to vomit. 

 

"Okay, Charlie. Show us on the doll." His mother instructed, lifting the baby's dress above its hard, plastic stomach. 

 

"Show you what?" He asked dumbly, just wishing that this was all over and he was back in his apartment, asleep, or out at Paddy’s getting wasted.

 

Anywhere but here. 

 

"Where he  _touched_ _you_." Mrs.Kelly wept, pulling down the baby's bloomers to its mid thighs, its sex-less groin on display for the whole room. Charlie felt his fingers go numb, realizing that his friends and family were meant to see this as a representation for _himself_.

 

From behind his mother, there was the unmistakable sound of his uncle Jack's quiet "Oh yeah." Charlie felt even closer to being sick. The way he said it was just…familiar, somehow. Not in the Déjà vu sense, either. There was a palpable feeling in the room that was just so fucking reminiscent of something else. Like having a word on the tip of your tongue that you’re _so_ close to remembering, yet still manages to elude you.  

 

"Shall I turn it over?" 

 

" _Yeah_ , turn her over." Uncle Jack whispered again, not even bothering to keep some semblance of respect for Charlie's well-being. In the back of his mind, there was a surfacing uncertainty—he tried his best not to acknowledge a connection forming between Uncle Jack’s behavior and…something else. Something he didn’t want to consider, but found it almost impossible not to, as every thought seemed to lead back to that monolith of a question.

 

Reluctantly, Charlie raised his pointer finger in the air, his hand wavering uncertainly as he tried to bite the bullet and just get it over with. It didn't help that Jack was still fucking  _talking_ , the obfuscated face leaning over his own in so many nightmares that was growing clearer and clearer still with each passing second. Charlie did everything he could to ignore his uncle, to ignore the way his knees shook and his heart hammered in his chest as he brought his finger down, down, down...

 

* * *

 

After the initial "confession", Charlie had just kind of gone numb. He dissociated through the awkward group hugging and other bullshit, and didn't even protest as the McPoyles dragged him into their car and away from the room of people probably still discussing the half-true tale of his molestation. 

 

He gazed out the window as he watched his old neighborhood roll by, eventually becoming little more than a street sign far, far on the horizon. There was an empty feeling deep inside of him that he knew would be there for a while. Maybe Dennis and Dee's stupid rape doll wasn't such a bad representation for himself after all: a thin casing of skin with nothing inside, and no decision, no will—only existing for people to use as they please.

 

Only existing to be toyed with and then left alone to sort out the broken pieces inside of himself.  

 

Whether they knew all of the details or not, for all intents and purposes, Charlie's most significant secret had been revealed. The worst case scenario—a scenario he could have _never_ predicted—had come to a head, and he couldn't think of a single reason why he should bother trying to hold up his end of the façade any longer. Mentally and socially, he couldn’t see his life from this point onwards as being anything but irrevocably fucked.

 

As the detective ushered Charlie into a back room of the police precinct, he didn't bother trying to spare the McPoyle brothers a single ounce of blame for their exploitation. The one stipulation, however, being that his testimony was taken as is, and he could not be called into the case later on as a witness. He relayed the story in as little words as he possibly could, still doing everything in his power to avoid thinking about his earlier realization. The testimony itself had absolved him of any relation to the crime, so, ironically, none of the bullshit he had gone through the past few days had even been necessary. Great. 

 

The sun was already down by the time Charlie reached Paddy's Pub—not that he really gave a shit. He'd debated calling Dennis or Dee to come and pick him up from the police station, but he didn't really feel up to dealing with them at all, honestly. Even if their intentions were good, the fact that they were involved with all of this bullshit really rubbed him the wrong way. 

 

He should've expected that they'd already be in the bar when he got there, though. Thankfully, he wasn't being immediately bombarded with questions this time around; although, he could still feel their eyes following after him as he crossed behind the bar and began gathering up as much booze as he could carry. 

 

Dennis cleared his throat, and Charlie debated just pretending he hadn't noticed. It would certainly be easier to just call it a done day and go out back and get absolutely wasted, like he'd planned. 

 

But...he also knew that they hadn't  _meant_  to humiliate him.

 

"They were lying, you know." He spoke, glancing at Dennis and Dee's vaguely conserved expressions. "Coach Murray never molested me—or them, for that matter. They just wanted to get revenge on him for being an asshole back when we were kids. I didn’t want anything to do with it.” 

 

Dennis and Dee shared a look, half between disbelief and something akin to pity, still reluctant to acknowledge that their assumptions had all been wrong.   


"Oh, yeah?" Dee said after a moment, taking on a hint of her earlier posture when they were trying to force a confession out of him. 

 

"Yeah." Charlie replied, changing his stance slightly to better balance the bottles he was holding. "After that thing today I ratted them out to the cops, so that’s over."

 

"So you're not gonna get in any trouble at all?" Dennis asked, still watching Charlie carefully as he sipped his beer. 

 

"Uh, no. No, not really." He stuttered, trying to shake off his friends' unrelenting stares. "And since the McPoyles are gonna plead guilty; I'm off the hook completely." 

 

"That's great."

 

"Sorry." Dee smirked that insufferable, shit-eating grin of hers, leaning against the bar. "Was he saying that the intervention  _worked_?" 

 

"No, I don't think that's what he's saying." Dennis countered, glaring her down. 

 

Dee, however, was completely unruffled. "What are you talking about? It was the final push Charlie needed. Turns out three-quarters of a major not so bad after all." 

 

"And the best part of it, actually, for me now is the fact that everybody thinks that I've been molested. So, in a way, my life is ruined." Charlie pointed out, trying to fight his growing discomfort at voicing that fact. "In the meantime, I'm gonna go in the back office and cry and cry and cry and drink for a while." He added, walking pointedly away from them and their self-important bullshit. Maybe they didn't know what had happened for sure, but now they at least had a hint of his past, and that was enough to make him feel incredibly isolated. 

 

Closing the door behind him with the edge of his heel, Charlie dumped the bottles down on the desk and flopped into the chair, an arm shielding his eyes from the fluorescents.  He felt like he should feel something. Sad, maybe. But inside, all he wanted to do was drink himself stupid and try to forget. To delude himself into thinking nothing was going to change over this. 

 

Popping open a bottle of vodka, he leaned back in the chair and took a large swig, a burning in his throat and his uncle's voice ringing in his ears. 

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued///


End file.
